Greetings, programs! This week we finally catch up with Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, and then writer/director Nicole Holofcener’s latest film, You Hurt My Feelings starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
Greetings programs, it’s Awesome Friday on a Sunday, which means we’re back with another episode of the Awesome Friday Movie Podcast!
Join us this week as we discuss two new movies. First up is the new Sony Pictures Animation film Vivo, which features the voice, and songs, of Lin-Manuel Miranda and was released to Netflix this week. Second up is James Gunn’s triumphant return to superhero movies; the Warner Brothers and DC released The Suicide Squad, now in theatres (and on HBO Max in the United States).
James Gunn has a distinctive voice. It’s always been there, from his days at Troma through writing the Scooby-Doo films and the Dawn of the Dead remake, and from his early directorial efforts like Slither and Super all the way to the Guardians of the Galaxy and now, the Suicide Squad. That voice is juvenile, a little dark, and also –and this is most important– fun.
I say this because The Suicide Squad, the movie he signed on to make while briefly exiled from Marvel Studios, is a juvenile movie. And it’s a little dark. And it’s pretty fun. But while its R-rated excesses are probably the logical extension of his voice as a storyteller, it is also cobbled together from his greatest hits from other projects. Your mileage may vary on whether it feels repetitive or merely familiar, but it’s also enough fun that that probably doesn’t matter.
I saw two movies whilst on vacation and while they’re both trying to be something they aren’t (a guilty pleasure and a shiny new _The Big Chill_ respectively) only one kinda succeeds.
In case you forgot all the names from the [posters yesterday](https://awesomefriday.ca/2014/04/the-expendables-3-has-a-cast-of-thousands-each-with-their-own-poster/), here’s a trailer that rattles them all off.
Speaking of Sylvester Stallone, remember watching the Grumpy Old Men movies and wishing that they would just start punching one another instead of playing pranks? No, me either, but someone did and here comes Grumpy Old Men III: Grudge Match, in which Stallone and Robert De Niro play aging boxers who come out of retirement to have one last fight. Let’s watch!
Jason Statham makes a certain type of movie usually. The one where he’s a hero and fights against a total douchebag bad guy and wins the day. That’s what Homefront appears to be, and in this case the douchebag meth dealing bad guy is James Franco and the movie was written by Sylvester Stallone. This one is gonna be special.
Yippie-ki-yay, mother lover. Sylvester Stallone confirmed today ([via Twitter](https://twitter.com/TheSlyStallone/status/364831174075486208), of course) that Bruce Willis is being exchanged wholesale for Harrison Ford in the upcoming *Expendables 3*. According to further tweets, there’s quite a spat forming between Stallone and Willis, with the former calling the latter “greedy and lazy”. Fighting talk indeed.
It’s been a rumour for a long time that Mel Gibson might join the cast of The Expendables franchise, and at this point how many more old man action stars are left to cast? Anyway, Sylvester Stallone seems to have confirmed that Gibson will be the bad guy in the next installment of the franchise with a not so subtle tweet
[Twitch gives us the heads up](http://twitchfilm.com/2013/07/mel-gibson-confirmed-as-expendables-3-villain.html)
Mad Max vs Barney Ross……
— Sylvester Stallone (@TheSlyStallone) July 16, 2013
Say what you will about Mr. Gibson but remember that this is the guy who played Mad Max, William Wallace and Ben Martin and a host of other crazy-just-under-the-surface and completely-when-pushed characters. Plus, again, old man action star, so it seems like it might be a good fit.
Expendables 1 was pretty bad and Expendables 2 was so bad it was good, so here’s hoping Expendables 3 follows on from 2 when it comes out in August 2014.
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